In recent years, consumers have drastically reduced the use of cash payment for goods and services and have more frequently relied on credit cards, debit cards, stored value cards, or electronic transfer of funds associated with a financial account to facilitate financial transactions. Due to the electronic nature of payment, financial institutions are able to track consumer behaviors involved in these transactions.
Traditionally, financial institutions have administered customer accounts in a systematic manner, in some instances without regard for account holder preferences, and in other instances based on account holder preferences expressed upon initiation of an account. For example, billing cycles are predetermined and statements are sent either through the mail or electronically. Electronic transmissions may include an email message with an embedded link to a statement.
Financial institutions frequently provide multiple types of products, such as credit cards, debit cards, mortgages, brokerage accounts, and other types of accounts and may offer a number of different options related to the management of each account. Typically, account holders are informed of these options upon opening an account or through special offers that may be made periodically.
Given the increased availability of electronic resources, such as financial institution web sites that are available to account holders over the Internet, it is now possible to provide account holders with a real time display of account activity as well as available account options. Although financial institutions have increased the availability of resources to account holders, these resources remain uniform without regard for individual account holder behaviors and preferences.
Accordingly, a solution is needed that leverages data available to financial institutions for each account holder in order to provide valuable up-to-date information to each account holder in an efficient manner. Furthermore, a solution is needed that leverages the data to provide differential data to each account holder dependent upon account holder preferences.